HEADLESS IN TOKYO.(International Edition; JAPAN)(Taro Aso's leadership shortcomings )

Byline: Christian Caryl; With Akiko Kashiwagi in Tokyo

Sure, Aso is atrocious. But so were his predecessors. Here's why Japan's politicians are so bad.

It's hard not to pity Shoichi Nakagawa. By now it seems the whole world has heard about the shame of Japan's former finance minister, who turned up apparently drunk at a G7 conference in Rome on Feb. 14. Nakagawa, who slurred his words and seemed to nod off during a press conference, resigned in disgrace soon after.

The real scandal, though, may be the guy who stayed.

Prime Minister Taro Aso, the man responsible for appointing Nakagawa, is still on the job--despite approval ratings in the single digits and an apparent lack

of any coherent plan for rescuing the world's second-largest economy from what may become its steepest slump since World War II. Aso's propensity for gaffes--he once said he wanted to turn Japan into a country "where the richest Jews would want to live"--and his failure to find a modus vivendi with the emboldened opposition have condemned Japan to paralysis at just the moment when it's in dire need of strong leadership.

Yet Aso's agony--and that of his party, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)--has even deeper significance. His failings at this crucial moment underscore the country's dramatic leadership deficit. Never, it seems, have the Japanese felt the absence of credible politicians quite so acutely. On Feb. 27 the mainstream Asahi Shimbun newspaper captured the mood in an op-ed when it pleaded, "Enough with the political void." As that line suggested, what's most striking about Aso's shortcomings is how normal they are. Modern-day Japan is a major force in global business, culture and technology--yet in some ways it is governed like a banana republic. Which raises a key question: why?